Aggidatta

1. Aggidatta.– Chaplain to the King of Kosala, first to Mahākosala, and then to his son Pasenadi. Later he renounced the world and, with a large band of followers, wandered about Aṅga, Magadha, and Kururaṭṭha, teaching a cult of nature-worship. The Buddha, seeing his potential (upanissaya), sent Mahā-Moggallāna to convert him. Moggallāna went to Aggidatta’s hermitage, but being refused shelter there, vanquished, by a display of psychic-power, a nāgarāja,Ahicchatta, who lived in the neighbourhood, and occupied the nāga’s abode. While Aggidatta and his followers stand awestruck at this event, the Buddha appears, and realising that the Buddha is even greater than Moggallāna, they pay homage to him. The Buddha teaches them the error of their ways. At the end of the discourse they become Arahants (DhA.iii.241‑7).

2. Aggidatta.– A brahmin of Bārāṇasī and father of the Bodhisatta, when the latter was born as Somadatta. The old man lived by ploughing, and one of his oxen having died, he decided, on the advice of his son, to ask the king for an ox. Somadatta, with great patience, trained him in all the formalities to be gone through in an appearance at court, but at the crucial moment when Aggidatta was making his petition to the king, he used the word “take” where he meant to use “give.” Somadatta’s presence of mind saved the situation (DhA.iii.124‑5). In the Somadatta Jātaka the name Aggidatta does not appear. In the present age he was the Thera Lāludāyī. J.ii.164 f.

3. Aggidatta.– A brahmin of Khemavatī, father of Kakusandha Buddha. His wife was named Visākhā. D.ii.7; Bv.xxiii.14; J.i.42.